


i wanna die with my chin up

by whiteviolinlesbian



Series: Extraordinary: My Life as Number Seven [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, first fic, title inspired by all die young (off of the soundtrack)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 10:01:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17916626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteviolinlesbian/pseuds/whiteviolinlesbian
Summary: “V.”(Later, over a few cans of shitty beer and a bass guitar, he would confess to me how scared he was that he wouldn’t get home that night. How he practiced his greeting to Mom, to Luther, Allison, Pogo, even Klaus to try to keep himself awake. How he was so relieved that I was the one on the other side of the door, because there’s less chance of stuttering when you only have one letter to get through.)





	i wanna die with my chin up

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first time posting fanfiction ever. Please let me know what you think in the comments and how I can improve! I'm considering making this the first part in a series of similar excerpts from Vanya's book, mostly based on her relationship with Diego (NOT romantically), mostly because I was so interested in the juxtaposition of his aggression during the show and their close relationship in the comics. What kind of fall out did they have? How much did she say in the book? Let me know if you're interested! Thank you for reading c:

_ (The following is an excerpt from Extraordinary: My Life as Number Seven, Chapter Three: The Tipping Point) _

 

I remember one night, he came limping in at two in the morning. His arm was clutched protectively around his midsection, bare, the t-shirt instead sloppily tied around a through-and-through in his right calf. We were seventeen at the time, and Diego had been sent on almost exclusively solo missions for almost a year now. Later he would tell me, proudly, that he had found half of them himself. Gone out for long days and late nights without asking, came in battered and clinging to consciousness, daring our father to punish him for stopping a horrible crime he might’ve been assigned to anyway. Reginald always did, of course. He never cared too much about the spirit of it.

 

Diego carefully closed the door behind him - Mom and Pogo always complained when we (Klaus, Allison) would forget to after a mission. I rose on shaking legs from where I had been waiting on the bottom step. Worrying. He looked up at me, as though he had just noticed that I was there. Grinned at me with shark’s teeth and a reckless fire in his eyes that had only come after Ben. 

 

“V.”

 

(Later, over a few cans of shitty beer and a bass guitar, he would confess to me how scared he was that he wouldn’t get home that night. How he practiced his greeting to Mom, to Luther, Allison, Pogo, even Klaus to try to keep himself awake. How he was so relieved that I was on the other side of the door, because there’s less chance of stuttering when you only have one letter to get through.)

 

Diego swayed violently, then, and braced himself against a column. The grin became a grimace, but the fire stayed the same. He was in bad shape. I didn’t trust myself to speak, to say the right thing. What could I say?  _ Your death wish is as bad as Klaus’ drugs, as bad as Allison-and-Luther, one day you’re going to walk out the door and then you’ll finally get what you want and then I’ll be  _ alone.

 

I went to get Mom. Swallowed the bitterness on my tongue, blinked away the hot feeling behind my eyes. Gave a shoulder to lean on the way to the infirmary, watched quietly as Mom tutted and tended, scolded and stitched. Diego seemed to realize halfway through that neither of us were going to ask, so he told us himself. Later I would realize that it might’ve been to keep himself awake. Five against one, he said proudly. They were gun runners for a larger hookup he’d been trying to track down for a long time. Really, he puffed out his chest, it was impressive that he’d managed to fend them off with the  _ one  _ gunshot wound. 

 

“One gunshot wound, two broken ribs, three grazes, and countless other minor abrasions and bruises,” Mom amended. I sat.

 

All I could think about was how small he still was. Seventeen. How lanky his body still was, struggling to put on muscle and height at the same time, it would look so wrong against the cold concrete of a warehouse floor. His calloused fingers would look so unnaturally still in death. 

 

“But - that’s very impressive, dear. Five against one is nothing to sniff at! I’m proud of you,” she finished applying the gauze around one of the grazes. She leaned down, kissed him on the forehead. Diego melted under her attention, pride turning into something softer, sweeter. He’ll kill me for saying this, but I think that Diego was always the sweetest of all of us. Maybe not the kindest - definitely not the most sensitive. But the sweetest.

 

“Y-yeah. Uh, thanks,” he ducked his head, quietly pleased. Somehow it only made the feeling in the pit of my stomach stronger. 

 

“Vanya, darling, would you mind coming and standing by the bed here for a minute? I think it’s about time for your brother to get some rest,” Mom turned and winked at me from where she had begun to prepare the IV. Her hands moved quickly, precisely, taking measurements of painkillers and unmarked bottles. It looked the same as when she made breakfast. The oddest things unsettle me about Mom. I remember when I was a child, I was terrified of her uncanniness, convinced that she was going to turn out to be a test or some way of punishing us when we  _ really _ did something wrong. But the other foot never dropped.

 

I got up, flashing Diego a wan smile and pretending not to notice where his knuckles had suddenly gone bone white. He glared at me in return - I was never any good at acting - before his eyes caught sight of the needle in Mom’s hand. From there it was routine, regular - his eyes widened, breath caught, and he was out. I caught him with the ease of practice. Usually, it would help me to feel this useful. There were so many long hours patching my siblings back together, piece by piece, that often the only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that I could help. Now it just made me feel sick.

 

I laid Diego back against the stupid hospital bed as gently as I could. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I remember noticing that my hands were shaking as I took the stupid mask off of his stupid face, crusted by now with blood and dirt. He looked so much more peaceful without it. I stared for a long time, distant and all too present as the feelings crescendoed inside of me - disgust, anger, selfish fear that one of these long nights, I would be left with nothing but the blood on my hands. I felt something inside of me start to crack. 

 

Mom patted my back absentmindedly while I cried on the floor of the infirmary. She held my hair back while I threw up in the bathroom down the hall, said meaningless words of reassurance while I tried to wash my hands enough that the feeling of his blood could be erased from my memory. It was a good hour later when I was calm enough to go to sleep.

 

It was a week later when Diego moved out.

 

A month after that when I followed.


End file.
